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At last! World premiere release of rousing Dimitri Tiomkin score for action-packed John Wayne western, presented by Universal Pictures, also starring Kirk Douglas, directed by Burt Kennedy. Intrada proudly offers complete score, newly mixed & mastered in full stereo from actual multi-track session masters stored in mint condition in Universal vaults. CD includes terrific opening "Ballad of The War Wagon", sung by Ed Ames. Happily, all "sweetener" elements also survived in perfect condition, allowing Intrada to remix all stereo chorus overdubs for main title, including additional harmonica & piano tracks! Tiomkin creates great main theme for armor-plated gold wagon, then fashions dynamic variations underlining preparations by Wayne & Douglas to destroy it along with villainous owner Bruce Cabot. Latter half of score features several incredible action set-pieces with Tiomkin in spectacular form as he nears end of composing career. Hearing it all in vivid stereo makes for an exciting listen! Great original 1967 artwork campaign plus color stills, text by Julie Kirgo completes this rich package of western music. One of Universal's best previously unreleased 1960's film scores is finally a CD reality. Dimitri Tiomkin conducts.

Dimitri Tiomkin was near the end of
a lengthy and prestigious career when he opted to score Universal Pictures’ rousing 1967
western The War Wagon. Unlike many composers for the silver screen who simply ran out
of steam in their twilight years, Tiomkin was flourishing with creative ideas and energetic
music as he reached the climax of his composing profession. The War Wagon score is
classic Tiomkin, full of outdoor melody, unbridled energy and ripe with orchestral color.

To present this complete score on CD for the first time, Intrada was given access to
all of the original multi-track stereo recording session masters recorded at the Goldwyn
Studios and stored in pristine condition in the Universal vaults. These recordings were
made in the days when 24-track and similar multi-track recording methods had not yet become
available. Typically, when making ambitious recordings requiring a large number of tracks, studios would record on multiple rolls of 35mm magnetic film or tape stock and
build layers of recorded material that would require synchronizing several film projectors
and tape machines to playback the various tracks simultaneously during the mixing
phase. It is worth noting in this score, for example, that the opening “Ballad” alone had
three separate channels devoted to the orchestra on one roll (high strings on the left,
woodwinds, horns and percussion in the center, low strings and remaining brass on the
right), three additional channels
on another roll incorporating a
rhythm section of guitars, bass
and drums and still another roll
that included separate channels
for harmonica and tack piano,
all requiring exact synchronization.
And that just covered the
instrumentalists! Further rolls
featured separate channels for a
male chorus on the left, female
chorus on the right and soloist
Ed Ames appropriately getting
center stage. It was tempting to
present an array of extras at the
end of this CD, offering all manner of mixing gimmicks such as the chorus without the
soloist, the soloist without the chorus, the tack piano with the rhythm section alone,
then with the harmonica, the back-up orchestra without anyone else… all fun perhaps
for a moment but, alas, ultimately not a sound listening experience.

The joy of our master tape discovery was that every
track had been preserved in beautiful condition, from the most imposing orchestral
flourish to the tiniest piano sweetener on each and every roll. Finding every roll complete,
and in perfect condition (especially with recordings more than four decades old),
is no small feat.

One other note about these recording sessions bears attention. Listeners familiar with
such classic Tiomkin albums as The Old Man And The Sea, The Fall Of The Roman Empire,
The Guns Of Navarone and 55 Days At Peking probably noticed an unusual amount of
room noise included in the recordings. The sessions for The War Wagon are no different.
I’m shooting from the hip but I suspect it had to do with Tiomkin’s unique gift as an orchestral
conductor with tremendous artistic flair. From the session conversations recorded on
these masters it appears Tiomkin
sought florid, over-the-top playing
over clinical, exact interpretation.
Add to this his own singularly
unique writing style with
numerous bowed, plucked and
pizzicato effects from the strings
and busy running figures from
all the players, not to mention
an enormous amount of tongued
(staccato) figures, trilling passages
and mordants (very brief trills) in
woodwinds that literally invited
the excessive rattling of keys. He
also required generous amounts
of flutter-tonguing from his brass players as well as having them constantly change mutes,
inviting extra noise. But the orchestral fury Tiomkin unleashed in his action music and the
ever-changing myriad solo colors he delivered from his woodwinds and brass was without
peer and far outweighed any instrumental noises also generated.

Every cue from Tiomkin’s score is included here, including several sequences not heard
in the finished film. Certain cues were truncated in the picture during post-production and
still others were repeated two or three times in fragments as needed. For our release, we
have included the entire score as originally conceived and recorded by the composer.
It’s rousing music, tuneful, rowdy and chock full of rip-roaring western fun, John Wayne
style. Grab those reins and hang on!